Bill would force cops to get a warrant before reading your e-mail

Last fall we wrote about how easy it probably was for the FBI to get the e-mails it needed to bring down CIA chief David Petraeus over allegations of infidelity. Under the ancient Electronic Communications Privacy Act, passed in 1986, the police can often obtain the contents of private e-mails without getting a warrant from a judge.

A bipartisan group of legislators has introduced a bill to the House of Representatives to change that. The bill would require the police to get warrants before reading users' e-mails in most circumstances and would also repudiate the view, advanced by the Obama administration last year, that the police can obtain information about the historical location of your cell phone without a warrant. The new legislation, proposed by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and supported by Reps. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Suzan DelBene (D-WA), would extend privacy protections for both e-mail and location privacy.

"Fourth Amendment protections don’t stop at the Internet," Lofgren said in an e-mailed statement. "Establishing a warrant standard for government access to cloud and geolocation provides Americans with the privacy protections they expect, and would enable service providers to foster greater trust with their users and international trading partners."

The warrant requirement comes with several important exceptions. The bill would not supersede the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was amended in 2008 to allow warrantless dragnet surveillance of Americans' international communications. Law enforcement would also be allowed to use geolocation information to provide 911 services. The police would further be allowed to engage in warrantless geolocation surveillance to deal with "conspiratorial activities threatening the national security" or "conspiratorial activities characteristic of organized crime."

"As technology continues to evolve and improve, Congress must ensure that the Fourth Amendment rights of our citizens are protected. We live in a much different world than 1986," Rep. Poe said in an e-mailed statement. "It’s time for Washington to modernize this outdated legislation to catch up with the times. Technology may change, but the Constitution does not."